This tutorial is part of the 2017 Finish Along Quarter 3 Tutorials Week.

Find the link up to the Quarter 3 Finish Along HERE or on any of the other hosts blogs.

A few years ago (November 2015 to be exact,) one of my Bee Sewcial mates, Leanne requested "No Negative Space, Maximalist" blocks in all the colors. Above is what I designed. At the time I had several ask how I did it and a few months later when participating in a swap I documented the process and was all prepared to give a tutorial on Instagram. At that very same time is when Instagram switched to non-chronological order and I just couldn't stand to do a tutorial that would show in everyone's feed all out of order, so I just sat on it. Well here we are today and I'll share this process on my blog (and I'm not sure why that never occurred to me before. LOL) As you will see my tutorial block looks extremely different from above, but the process is the exact same, just different fabric choice, which really shows the versatility of this block.

A Few Notes:For this tutorial I won't be giving dimensions, as you can do this technique in a variety of sizes. The first time I made this block my "piano keys" were around 7"-8" long, for this tutorial they were around 5" long so that I could use a charm pack I had on hand. I'm sure you could make them even smaller or a lot longer. Play with it and have fun.

1. Gather Supplies - Variety of scraps, strings are perfect, but smaller chunks can be pieced into longer strips. These scraps in the upper left corner are in the 1"-2" wide and 5" long range.

2. Sew Together Smaller Scraps - I took my little scraps and sewed them randomly to each other to create at least 5" long pieces. Press seams open. Don't trim anything at this point.

3. Cut Piano Keys - Once you have a pretty good sized stack of scraps, start cutting "pie" shaped pieces as seen above. Use scissors and not a rotary cutter or ruler and just make sure one end is thicker than the other end. Make sure the smallest end is at least 3/4" wide. You can see above I have a variety of shapes and sizes.

4. Playing With Layout - Start laying out your "piano keys" in segments of around 5-8 pieces all with the wide ends on one side and the skinnier ends together on the other to start creating a nice curve as shown above. I alternated solid scraps with pieced ones, or at least tried to stagger the seams.

5. Sewing Together The Piano Keys - Once you are happy with your layout, start sewing the segments together two at a time, pressing the seams open. I usually try to line up the narrower ends, but it doesn't really matter.

6. Sewing Together The Larger Panel - Now that you have chunks sewn together start to play with your pieces to create a nice long "S" curve. Sometimes you might have to add in a a larger scrap (see the tops) and sometimes you might have to add in a smaller chunk to make the curve do exactly what you want it to do. Overall you want to have a nice meandering curve, make sure the curve doesn't change too sharply, but rather think of an extended long "S."

7. Trimming The Piano Keys - Once you have reached your desired length and are happy with the way it looks, it is time to trim the curves to make a nice smooth piece. Trim as little or as much as you want, but you can see above I trimmed only the bits that extended too far past the piece next to it. You can see I kept the nice gradual curves and had very little waste or trash.

8. Cutting The Background - Now it's time for you to decide how wide you want your piece to be and cut a solid piece long and wide enough for your specifications. As you can see on the example above to the left I lay the piano keys on top of the fabric and make sure I have plenty enough room to accommodate the curves and the seam allowance. The piece on the right has been cut and towards the bottom you can see it gets thin in one spot, but it is still at least 1" wide (I wouldn't really go any thinner than that.) As for cutting the background piece I just over lap the two pieces like the one on the left and literally cut the background piece following along that curved edge. Pretty easy.

9. Aligning The Curves - There is no exact science when sewing this long curve, but I mark all the outer and inner curves with a pin on each side and when I am sewing I aim to make those pins match. It doesn't always work perfectly but that is my ultimate goal.

10. Aligning The Curves 2 - Sometimes I will start in the very middle of a really long piece and actually pin right sides together where it should match. Then I will start sewing from the middle out until I get to the end. And then I will start on the loose end (or top) and sew (and ease) it all until I get back the middle where I first started.

11. Clipping Curves And Ironing - Once you have your "background" sewn on the piano keys and you are happy with how flat or not flat it is, you can clip the concave and convex curves to make it lay even flatter. I press this seam toward the background because it is a whole piece of fabric and it tends to lay better this way.

12. How To Use This Block - The first time I made this block it was a bee block and was sent in it's entirety for the recipient to use whole, as is. The second time I made this block was for a swap and I needed to cut it into pieces that I could mail to the recipients, you can see those above. I just cut up the long piece into unique blocks. You could also sew a background to the other curved side and make more of a traditional rectangle or square block. Lots of options and fun things you can create with this design.

Thank you for joining me today and I truly hope you give this technique a try. If you do, please tag me in your photos and use Hashtag #ImprovPianoKeys.

It is quarter 3 Tutorial Week! During the year, each of the Finish-A-Long hosts will be giving you guys a free tutorial. We have had quite a few great tutorials so far. Starting today and every day for the next four days just visit the scheduled hosts blog and enjoy. Hopefully you will learn some new skills or fine tune some existing ones.

Head on over (right now) and visit Nicky of Mrs. Sew & Sow and get an adorable tutorial to make tiny pumpkin pincushions or decorations. Visit each one this week, there will be tutorials on making a cord keeper, improv quilt blocks, sewing over thick seams and taming seam allowances. Hope you enjoy them!

Hello everyone! The year is flying by and it is time to link up all those quarter 3 finishes, you have a lot of them, right? Well whether you do or don't it is time to link them up!

It might be hard to believe but we have made it to the end of the third quarter of the 2017 FAL and it's time to link up your Q3 finishes!The 2017 FAL has a community of bloggers across the world jointly hosting the FAL. Our hosts are:

The 2017 Q3 link for your finishes is now open below on my blog and on each of the hosting blogs - you only need to link on one blog for your finish to appear on each blog.Link-up "rules":

Add one link for each finish. If you want to link a round up post of all your finishes, use that link to enter one of your finishes and then link the rest of your finishes separately. Please, only one link per finish, as your link is an entry into the randomly drawn prize draws.

Please ensure that the photo or blog post you link up contains a link or reference back to your original list so that we can verify your entry (make sure it is from the appropriate quarter).Feel free to and tag your photos #2017FALQ3yourname (substitute your name), this makes it easier for us to match your finishes with your lists.

Please become part of the FAL community. Please check out the links of others and comment. We all need encouragement so let's applaud each other. The 2017 FAL Facebook page is here and follow us on Instagram @finishalong.

Our hosts will also link their finishes to share in the community, but they are not eligible for any of the prizes.

The Q3 Finishes link will stay open from now thru September 30 at 11 pm EST - link up your finishes early and if you have a last minute one, add that one later so you don't miss out. The prizes will be awarded as soon as we can verify all the entries and do the drawings. We will post the winners on each hosts' blog.

And don't forget to start making your Q4 lists as the Q4 list link opens on October 1.

Today is the day we are privileged to announce the winners for Q1 and Q2 of the 2017 Finish-Along.

If you are low on inspiration or maybe your sewing mojo has been missing lately, we highly recommend you visit some of the finishes from the first half of the year. There are a lot of beauties linked up and ready to inspire you!

Thank you again to our generous sponsors. Without further ado, the winners - each picked by the random number generator - of the Q1 and Q2 FAL prizes are:

The Q2 Winner of a $25 gift certificate from Studio 39 Fabrics goes to Brown Paws Quilting who made this great quilt and honestly you should look it up because the back is just as fantastic as the front:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Congratulations to the winners and thank you to the sponsors!! I hope you are having a successful Q3, be prepared to start linking up those finishes starting September 24, 2017.

Once a month (and two months, twice) I will be featuring one of my co-hosts for the Finish Along so you can get to know them better. This month is Sarah from Sew Me and I'll wrap up here so you can read about her life directly from her! Enjoy!

"So, tell us a bit about yourself."

Aren't those fearsome words? I get all a bit tongue tied, don't know where to start and wonder how on earth to make myself sound even mildly interesting. Sweat beads form, my voice wobbles a little and 20 seconds later I've usually run out of things to add! But, one of things I love about meeting people in a sewing context is that already we have something in common. I find it's great ice breaker and conversation flows much more naturally. So, here goes for my 2017 FAL 'Meet The Host' post.

Hi everyone!

I'm Sarah

and this is my family.

The handsome one and the mischief maker!

I'm wife to my hubby (first love and childhood sweetheart) and mum to our two children - a teenage boy, who has long since has passed me in height, intelligence and wisdom too it seems (what do mothers know?) and my Cutesy Tootsie daughter who is now two years old. Yes, big age gap, long story and no, I am not the older, wiser and more mellow mother people kindly assured me I would be during my second pregnancy. Well, older yes, but not the other two.

We live our hectic daily routines out here in a tiny little crossroads of a place called Annahilt in Northern Ireland, where it rains a lot I'll admit, but oh my, is it beautifully green when we are lucky enough to have sunshine to appreciate it!

I prefer tea to coffee, chocolate or cake before crisps, suburbs rather than city, white wine not beer, Buble rather than Bieber, (don't judge). I cannot dance but I make a great chocolate cake! I don't seem to choose favourites easily which makes me feel a bit odd when I can't answer what my favourite book or movie or colour is. Colour might be red, but a good pink is in contention too.

I work to feed my fabric habit!

Sadly, there is a day job - how else could I afford to keep those fabric orders coming? I work in finance and administration from home for the company my hubby and his business partner own. There's a knack to working and living with your spouse. Since we haven't strangled each other yet we must be getting the hang of it reasonably well. Of course, I'd love to "retire" and sew all day but really, it might get dull if my WIPs actually made it from beginning to end with no 10 month lulls and 3 more projects started in the meantime, right?

Oh yes, I dream of stitching more, much more, because I love it. Knitting needles, crochet hooks, binca and floss, cross-stitch - they have all been part of my journey with stitching and getting creative. I look back very fondly, though with cringing embarrassment, at having tortured my Aunt every Christmas first to teach me and then to help me with my knitting. I remember getting excited in the senior primary school classes when Friday afternoon needlework came around and, as I got older there always seemed to be some kind of needlecraft project on the go at our house. It fell by the wayside a little when I started working and had my son, but it wasn't too long before I was looking for some crafty outlet in my life. I tried a few things that I thought might work for me. Soap making, and card making were fun for a while but they weren't quite the long-term fit I was after. I enjoyed them but they weren't quite "me".

In the summer of 2010 I pulled out some fabric I'd bought 9 years earlier (!) and started making a hexagon EPP quilt (pic above). As I stitched and stitched that summer I knew I'd found my creative, soul-feeding hobby and if that wasn't enough of a sign, just before I went on my summer hols armed with pre-cut hexies and papers, an email dropped into my inbox telling me that my lovely friend, Judith was just about to start teaching classes. Patchwork on a sewing machine? Was I up for it? Well, I'd try it and if it was a disaster I could always stick with EPP . Fair to say, I've not looked back since that first night at quillow class. My creative spark was fully alight and soon my cup and house began to overflow with fabric and spools and ribbons and I even learned a few designers names and could tell you what that fabric line was!

Discovering blogs was a MASSIVE game changer of course, because there was so much out there to learn, and generous and talented people were willing to share. Blogging myself was another epic moment in my stitchy life. I joined the online community at just the right time (2010) I think, to catch a wave of flickr groups, online bees, swaps and general bloggy interaction with other people who share my passion. It has been amazing! And, of course the FAL is all part of that. Sharing the journey of project finishes and having virtual cheerleaders is definitely better than sitting at home talking to a pile of UFOs alone!

Most of all, I love to make quilts. Simple quilts, tricky quilts. Big quilts, small quilts, mini quilts. Machine piecing, hand-piecing, embroidery, EPP. All have their place in singing to my heart. I enjoy bag making and crocheting and making small items too, though I need to draw myself away from the quilts to do them. I think I have quite a broad range of tastes and likes when it comes to designs and fabrics but will admit to a particular penchant for Bonnie & Camille fabrics and colours (which I'm sure is no surprise to regular readers).

I love that when I sew I can switch off from the world for a while and just focus on what I'm doing. I love that I can choose, depending on my mood, to sew intricate and brain-fuddling foundation pieced blocks or just simple squares and the results of each will be equally pleasing to me. I take pleasure that in my sewing, the creative and the intellectual come together (quilt maths, anyone?) and I adore that I have a hobby that the internet has allowed me to share and make friends through. This is much more "me" than soaps and cards, it's "Sew Me". See?

Anyway, my lovely readers and FAL friends, I hope you feel you know me a little bit better now after all that. And remember, tea or white wine when we meet, ok?

Now, I've kept you back from your stitching for long enough, so off you go and keep making progress towards those finishes!! I'll be cheering you on from here.